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Sunday, July 19, 2015

The Kid Goes Live

Last spring, I'd alerted many people on my mailing list about a promotional offer I was planning: Buy a paperback copy of Tatterdemalion and you'll get a free copy of the Scott Carson short story I was beginning. Disappointingly, I only got three takers on that offer.
Then, after hitting a wall for a couple of months about how to end "The Kid", I finally knuckled down and finished it last week. Then I got another idea: Since it's a good 15,000 words-long, why not turn it into a small paperback and Kindle single (go the Kindle page and read a couple of sample pages)?
Ergo, after the usual publishing delays, the Createspace version went live a few days ago and the Kindle version launched late last night. But that doesn't mean the promotion has to come to an end.
Yes, for those of you who haven't bought the paperback version, I'm still willing to give away copies of "The Kid" in either format. If you want the paperback (I've ordered five new proof copies that are identical to the finished one now for sale), tell me and I'll snailmail one to you at my expense. Or, if you have a Kindle and prefer that, I can send a complimentary copy if you give me your email address.
The paperback goes for $3.95, a higher price than I'd like, but since we're talking paper, ink and other overhead printing expenses, there's nothing I can do about that (I've priced it as low as Createspace will let me, meaning my royalties will be pennies). The same goes for the Kindle version, although I was able to price that down to the minimum .99¢. "The Kid" is Scott Carson's first adventure that takes place in 1873, when he's six and a half years-old. Among several other things, it details Carson's friendship with Will, a slightly older child who goes on to become one of the most famous (or infamous) Americans of all time. He's also introduced to Jacob Riis, the historical figure who became a liberal muckraker during the late 19th-early 20th century. Riis, while a minor but ultimately important character in Tatterdemalion but a very important one in Carson's life, is vividly brought back to life as are Carson's parents and Captain Thomas Byrnes, the notoriously corrupt Chief of Detectives in the NYPD. It's an extremely rare short story for me since I almost never write them but out of the ones I've tried in my life, this is the only one that's turned out very well. So, if you're interested in both books, leave a comment or shoot me an email at Crawman2@yahoo.com.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

WI Legislature Votes Blacks Must be Precuffed and Pretased For Law Enforcement.

Madison, WI -- Coming on the tail end of a raft of Draconian legislation from the legislative body, the GOP-dominated Wisconsin Senate ratified the "2015 Black Empowerment Act". A nearly identical bill sailed through the lower chamber albeit votes being cast along party lines.

The bill, if signed into law by Governor and presidential candidate Scott Walker, would mandate all Wisconsin African Americans, including those officially judged to be "Octaroon", be precuffed and even pretased prior to being approached by law enforcement.

"I bet you thought we were being sarcastic again when we named this bill, huh?" said Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore Tyler August (R-Lake Geneva). "But there you'd be wrong. The 'empowerment' part comes in with the newly-established neutered state of the negroes."

Speaker Pro Tempore August further went on to say this is a necessary and humane solution to the recent spate of unarmed African Americans who have been shot by law enforcement or "well-meaning law enforcement sympathizers" such as George Zimmerman.

"With the liberal press yammering on about Tamir Rice this and Trayvon Martin that, this legislative body felt it was time to take some firm, decisive and, we think, bold action that should curb the understandable fears of our courageous law enforcement professionals who piss their pants at the sight of an unencumbered negro."

According to the language of the bill, officially known as S215,

"Any individual of African American descent or anyone darker than, say, Nikki Haley, if outside will be required to have their hands cuffed behind their backs either with metal handcuffs or zip ties. In addition, ankles must be cuffed with no more than 12 inches of space between the inside of the feet. If approached by law enforcement, the suspects must voluntarily tase themselves with a state-approved taser emitting no less than 30,000 volts. A completely supine, face-down position is also required."

Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch hailed the measure, sneering at "liberal gossip about how it's demeaning to blacks", adding, "How is a bill designed to keep unarmed blacks from getting shot in the back as they flee during a traffic stop, as we saw with the Walter Scott shooting, a bad or racist thing?

"Just think if Trayvon Martin had been hopping back to his Dad's house, his iced tea and Skittles behind him, already rendered completely unable to defend himself against the much larger George Zimmerman? Mr. Zimmerman wouldn't have given him a second look or, at most, he would've called 911 and let SWAT handle the little thug."

US Rep. and former GOP Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan, issued a press release about the new bill saying, "Tamir Rice would be looking forward to finishing middle school in Cleveland right now if the toy gun he'd been brandishing at frightened white people had been a Taser International taser. That way, if he'd shocked himself into complete submission and would have been twitching on his stomach, Officer Timothy Loehmann would've thought twice, maybe three times, about shooting the child less than two seconds after arriving to confront the threat he represented."

It's unknown at press time if Governor Walker plans to return to the state Capitol in Madison to sign the bill but the Governor's campaign did say to Redstate.org that, "Hopefully, this bill will become just the first of many to be enacted across the nation such as Stand Your Ground, open carry laws and voter fraud measures favored by the Koch Brothers." (A later version of the press release deleted the Koch brothers' name and quietly replaced with "real Americans.")
Law enforcement bodies across Wisconsin condemned the bill, saying it doesn't go far enough in allaying their fears of Angry Black Man Syndrome.
"Nothing less than a full body cast will do," said the President of the Milwaukee Fraternal Order of Policemen.

Good Times at Pottersville, 7/13/15

Monday, July 6, 2015

Fear and Lathering on the Campaign Trail

"#JebBush has to like the Mexican illegals because of his wife." - Donald Trump in a now-deleted tweet
“I don’t think he represents the Republican Party, and his views are way out of the mainstream of what most Republicans think.” - Jeb! Bush

Unfortunately, Jeb! is wrong. And he knows it.
Immediately after overrated birthday party clown Donald Trump came out swinging against Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans, calling them "rapists", his poll numbers began skyrocketing. It seems the more companies that give Trump his own medicine and fire his umber bum, the more popular he gets. That goes to show you the current state of the Republican Party and, frankly, I am amazed there are any Latinos who still identify and vote as Republicans.
And, as Rachel Maddow pointed out last year, hypocrisy is the one crime in politics for which there is no comeuppance and Trunp is living personification of that Golden Rule. So it doesn't matter to Republican voters that after inveighing against the Chinese and the Mexicans taking our jobs that it was quickly revealed his clothing line is made in those very same countries.
He plainly loathes anyone who isn't white or orange or rich in his orange creamsicle world and, by God, that's good enough for them.
Therefore, since he'd placed himself in a tie for second with professional token Ben Carson in the Iowa straw poll, CNN feels it incumbent to take Hair Force One seriously and to give him 24/7 coverage on their endless cycle as he bobs and double weaves his way down the campaign trail sourly calling for boycotts of Macy's and whoever else has fired him. It also doesn't matter to the not-so-smart set who continue defending the confederate rag that Trump has in short order been shit canned by virtually every company he doesn't own.
So why do we have to take this Bozo seriously?

The Only Man Who Can Give Bill O'Reilly Gravitas

In his interview with Bill O'Reilly last month, Trump came off sounding like the drunk in a bar at last call challenging anyone to a fight. To give you a taste of the Pirandelloesque Theater of the Absurd feel of the interview, here's a choice snippet from Trump about ISIS:

“I say that you can defeat ISIS by taking their wealth. Take
back the oil. Once you go over and take back that oil they have nothing.
You bomb the hell out of them and then you encircle it, and then you go
in. And you let Mobil go in, and you let our great oil companies go in.
Once you take that oil they have nothing left.”

One has to give O'Reilly props for not bursting out loud in laughter during the interview and asking the Donald whose birthday party he'd be doing next.
The reason why the Republican establishment is alternately supporting Trump and giving him one free pass after another is because they know to go after him is to dismantle one of their load-bearing planks: Immigration. They know he represents their positions and, like politicians the world over, get the dry heaves at the thought of running afoul of a sizable voting block like the NASCAR BBQ Ford truck set.
So, yes, people. We have to take this clown seriously, just as Chicago police had to finally take Pogo seriously. And we have to take him seriously because others take him seriously. CNN takes him seriously. Every network and virtually every newspaper has to take him seriously because he represents one of the Republican Party's hood ornament issues: Immigration.
And the only reason why a precious few Republicans are publicly criticizing him is because Trump's not doubling weaving his positions like he does his hair. He's not cloaking his racism with blather about "state's rights."
He's bringing the rest of the Dylann Roof wing of the GOP kicking and screaming into the disinfecting sunlight and forcing the rest of the country to confront what they truly stand for.
And against.